1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is data processing, or, more specifically, methods, apparatus, and products for operating computer memory.
2. Description of Related Art
The development of the EDVAC computer system of 1948 is often cited as the beginning of the computer era. Since that time, computer systems have evolved into extremely complicated devices. Today's computers are much more sophisticated than early systems such as the EDVAC. Computer systems typically include a combination of hardware and software components, application programs, operating systems, processors, buses, memory, input/output devices, and so on. As advances in semiconductor processing and computer architecture push the performance of the computer higher and higher, more sophisticated computer software has evolved to take advantage of the higher performance of the hardware, resulting in computer systems today that are much more powerful than just a few years ago.
One area of computer technology in which advances have been made is in computer memory. Currently, memory vendors provide a recommended operating temperature range for memory DIMMs (Dual In-line Memory Modules) used in computer systems. Operating computer memory below such recommended operating temperature ensures a low incident rate of soft errors independent of device variability. Cooling computer memory is becoming increasingly difficult in computer systems and servers, such as blade servers for example. This is particularly true when running very heavy workloads such as those encountered in benchmark testing where CPU and memory utilizations are purposely driven to provide maximum performance. Most computer systems today monitor memory temperatures during operation of the computer and increase fan speeds or throttle operation of processors and data communications buses to maintain memory temperatures below the recommended maximum operating values. This prior art method controlling cooling resources in a computer is conservative and often reduces functionality of a computer system unnecessarily. The prior art method uses only temperature in managing cooling of a computer system—completely disregarding any actually occurring memory errors, or the lack thereof at higher temperatures. Further, the recommended operating temperature is also typically set conservatively by the memory vendor. Throttling functionality of a computer to maintain memory temperatures below a conservatively set value further reduces possible functionality of the computer regardless of any actual memory errors. That is, in some instances computer memory may be capable of operating with an acceptable level of memory errors at temperatures well above the maximum recommended operating temperature, but in prior art methods, such operation is prohibited.